Dilly Beans

Since you are in the pickling mood from making your dill pickles, here is a great recipe for Dilly Beans. This recipe comes from Carolyn Jenkins, who was like a second mom to me growing up. Melodie and I would sit and eat these by the jarful when we were in high school. I make these and everyone who tastes them loves them.

DILLY BEANS
yield: 7 to 8 pints

Green Beans, whole 4 lbs.
Crushed red hot pepper - 1/4 tsp. per pint jar
Mustard Seed - 1/2 tsp. per pint jar
Dill Seed - 1/2 tsp per pint jar
Garlic- 1 clove per pint jar

Vinegar: 5 cups
Water: 5 cups
Pickling Salt: 1/2 cup

1. Wash beans, drain, trim stems and cut into lengths to fill pint jars. You want these to be all approximately the same height. You will have extra pieces from the trimming so set them aside in a bowl and I will tell you what you can do with them in a little bit.

2. Wash your wide mouth pint jars in hot water. After they are clean leave them in a sink filled with hot water. You want your jars to be hot when you pack the beans in. Another way you can do this is wash them in the dishwasher and then let them sit in the hot drying cycle of the dishwasher until you are ready to pack the beans in.

3. Fill the jars with your beans. To get the most in the jar you want them to be standing straight up and down.

4. In each jar add your red pepper, mustard see, dill seed and garlic.

5. Combine vinegar, water, salt and heat to boiling. Pour boiling liquid over beans, filling to 1/2 inch from the top of the jar.

6. Put your lids and bands on.

7. Get a large water bath canner and process in boiling water for 5 minutes. Let me explain how to do this:

A water bath canner is different than a pressure canner. A pressure canner MUST be used for all meats and vegetables. EXCEPT for pickled vegetables and most tomato recipes. The vinegar and salt in the pickling recipes acts as a preservative. And tomatoes are naturally acidic. A water bath canner is essentially a large pot with a rack on the bottom. You can get them at bi-mart pretty inexpensively and it should come with the rack inside. Once you have one you can use it for making jams, jellies, tomatoes, salsa, peaches, pears and have them sitting on your shelf ready to eat anytime.



Fill your canning pot with water about 2/3 of the way full. Let it come to a boil and gently lower your jars of beans into the boiling water. If they don't all fit you will have to do them in batches. They cannot be stacked on top of one another. Your boiling water will stop once you add the jars of beans and then once it comes back to a boil start timing it. It needs to boil for 5 minutes. This is so it will be safe to sit on your shelf and look pretty and everyone can be so impressed with your culinary skills. No need to refrigerate these bad boys.

8. Remove jars and set on a wire rack to cool.

9. Let sit for 6 weeks until pickled. You are welcome to try these before 6 weeks. They may taste great. If they do let me know. My recipe doesn't say anything actually about waiting but I know that most pickled recipes like this do have you wait. So I do. But like i said, if you are too impatient to wait and they end up tasting great then I want to know about it too.

So about those little pieces of green beans I mentioned I would help you with? Well, throw those in a half pint jar and halve the amount of spices to go in with them. Pour your water, vinegar, salt mixture over the top just like the other jars and process the same. I call these DILLY PIECES and throw them in my potato salad. YUM, YUM.